


Inside of You -- A Mary Poppins Returns Songfic

by dolcewrites



Category: Mary Poppins (Movies), Mary Poppins - P. L. Travers
Genre: Angst, Because I never edit, Death, Gen, Mary Poppins Returns, Songfic, The Place Where The Lost Things Go, but be prepared to cry, idk how to tag this without spoilers, unedited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-10 00:59:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18928096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dolcewrites/pseuds/dolcewrites
Summary: Mary sighed wistfully, gazing out the window. “I must have been gone a great deal of a long time.”“Oh, I bet it mean’ nothin’ to you, with all these adven’ures you’re goin’ on.” Bert sounded kindly when he spoke, but still, Mary felt a stinging wetness prick her eyes.





	Inside of You -- A Mary Poppins Returns Songfic

**Author's Note:**

> Lyrics are from Mary Poppins Returns - The Place Where the Lost Things Go (slightly edited to fit the story). I own nothing but the plot.

For all the years she had served in her life, Mary Poppins always trusted the wind. It brought her where she needed to be, and she always knew why she was where she was, at any given moment. The movement of the wind gave her clarity of mind, and the luxury of sharp focus — free of confusion, without a need to adjust to the new environment she was plunged into.

 

But the wind had left her idle for a few weeks now, winding through the skies of Europe with no doorstep to land upon. Time, ever the enemy of impatience, began nurturing a seed of doubt, deep in her heart. Why would the wind set her sail when so many children would need her at this very moment?

 

She had taken on a handful of wards after the war, but never more than a few months at most. The faces she had met over the past few years were all new, spare her parrot-headed umbrella, ever yapping away while clasped in her gloved fist. He spoke now, with an indignant discomfort from being held upside down for too long. “When do you reckon we’d land, Mary Poppins?” She tutted in response. “We always trust the wind, don’t we?”

 

“The wind,” coughed the parrot, “has left me hanging like a bat for a long time. Oh, what I would give to be home!”

 

“Oh, pish posh,” Mary sniffed. “We never really stay anyplace for long.” She clutched her carpet bag closer to her. For some reason, she felt unsure.

 

“Land ho! Land ho! Goodness me, it’s Big Ben!” If the parrot had fingers, he would have pointed them, rather rudely, towards the tower that broke through the morning fog of London. “Oh, do let us land here! You’ve had many a ward in England,” he added excitedly to Mary, who merely sniffed in response.

 

“Hi! What’s this! Oh, mercy! We’re landing! We’re landing!”

 

To the parrot’s joy, Mary Poppins (and the umbrella with her) began floating down upon a small building on the edge of a rackety lane. Mary breathed sharply as they reached the doorstep.

 

“I… I don’t seem to understand what I am here for,” she confessed quickly as she folded up her umbrella and propped the handle upright.

 

“Well, what does the sign on the wall say? If you could read, dear girl — “

 

Heaving a sigh, Mary thrust the handle upwards. The parrot’s beak knocked into the heaving metal sign.

 

“Ow! Careful there, that’s — hm, yes, let’s see.” He inspected the sign with the scrutiny of a professor over a book. “Ah. A Nursing Home.”

 

Mary’s gaze flitted to the ground and quickly back up to face her umbrella.

 

“I can read, thank you,” she snapped, as if the parrot was the one that was tarrying all along. She stalked up to the door and rapped three times — sharp and clean. “Is anyone there?”

 

The woman who greeted the door was an Old Nun, who couldn’t decide if she was more displeased with the sights inside the house than the sight that greeted her at the doorstep. “Who are you looking for?” she asked with a scowl.

 

“Well, I —“

 

“Well, if I didn’ know be’er, I would say she’s lookin’ fo’ me.” A voice rang from a balcony above her, clear and cheery as it had always been from the first day she knew it. Looking up, Mary stared into the kind, twinkling eyes of Bert, who was peering down at her over the worn-down parapet. “Let ‘er in, Sister Margaret!” he called to the woman at the door. “She’s me guest for tonight.”

 

She looked her up and down, and once again. “First floor to your right,” she said finally, with a stern glare. “Thank you,” Mary Poppins replied, equally impolitely as she stalked past her and up the staircase.

 

When she found the room, she found Bert being helped into bed by a young nurse. “Thank you, Nurse,” he said, tipping his worn hat at her. “D’you mind leavin’ the two o’ us for a moment?” “Of course, sir,” she said before scurrying off, throwing a quick nod at Mary as she did.

 

“She’s like a mouse, tha’ one. Very sweet,” Bert sighed as the pair watched her leave. “Well, Mary Poppins! To what do I owe you the pleasure?” Chipping up, he gently placed a hand on the bed, inviting her to sit. And there she sat, with the carpet bag on the chair and the umbrella leaning against the nightstand.

 

“The wind brought me,” Mary replied in honesty, having no explanation for why she had landed in front of his nursing home.

 

Something flashed across Bert’s face, an expression Mary had never seen on him before. “The wind is always right,” he murmured, placing his calloused hand on Mary’s. “”Course i’ would know —“

 

“Know what?” Mary’s voice came quickly, almost too quickly.

 

Bert chuckled. “I’m dyin’, Mary. Couldn’ do me nothin’ no more. I hear the nurses whisperin’ all day long, an’ the doctors too.”

 

Her face fell, bringing with it a sharp inhale. A long, sticky silence began seeping through the room.

 

“Oh, pish posh. You never know that,” she said finally.

 

“Well,” Bert smiled, “I don’ expect you t’ understand. See, now you look just as young as th’ day I first met you. I knew you were special, even then.”

 

For once, Mary felt unaffected by flattery. She sat closer to him, holding his hand.

 

“Bu’ we live, an’ we die. It’s how us humans ‘ave worked, since the very beginning.”

 

“Visiting hours are over! Oh hi, are you with the sweep?” A patrolling matron poked her head around the doorway. “Stay as long as you like! He needs it, poor ol’ thing,” she said, giving him a wink. “Haven’t had visitors in ages, not since the war, no. Just this lad, yes, who brought his wife and daugh’er with him sometimes. Your son, wasn’t he? Well, I best be going. So many people nowadays, it’s like an anthropomorphic zoo in here. Visiting hours are over!” Then she ambled away, her hollers ringing down the hall.

 

“Your son?“

 

“Not nearly,” Bert muttered with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, out of earshot of the nurse. “Jack and Jane Banks, yes, that’s ‘is wife now. And me little poppet Barbara. Their daugh’er. They ‘ave a daugh’er now, Mary. Innit wonderful?” He laughed weakly and sank lower into his bed. “A child. Goodness me.”

 

Mary sighed wistfully, gazing out the window. “I must have been gone a great deal of a long time.”

 

“Oh, I bet it mean’ nothin’ to you, with all these adven’ures you’re goin’ on.” Bert sounded kindly when he spoke, but still, Mary felt a stinging wetness prick her eyes. Tears! The very notion of it! It was the most nonsensical thing to ever come out of a very sensible woman like Mary Poppins herself. She blinked them away quickly with a long sniff.

 

“Bert —“

 

“You don’ ‘ave to say goodbye, Mary. You don’ ‘ave to say anythin’. I’m happy you’re ‘ere.”

 

“Now don’t you start with me, Bert,” Mary said, in a very Stern Voice. “There has to be something that can be done. I’m certain of that.”

 

“Yes, perhaps…” Bert eased himself up a little, wincing at the effort. Mary held his arm firmly. With a trembling hand, he reached up and touched her face.

 

“D’you reckon you could… sing for me?”

 

“Oh, I haven’t sung in years,” Mary protested sheepishly, flitting her gaze away from his eyes that she could never refuse. “Oh, me, I’m not an opera singer, none o’ the sort,” Bert said encouragingly. “Jus’a little tune ‘ould do.”

 

“Well…”

 

_Do you ever lie awake at night_

_Just between the dark and the morning light_

_Searching for the things you used to know?_

_Looking for the place where the lost things go._

 

“Yes, yes, very beautiful,” Bert smiled, putting his hand on top of Mary’s, rocking it gently. Mary blinked in gratitude, holding it back.

 

_Do you ever dream or reminisce?_

_Wondering where to find what you truly miss?_

_Well, maybe all those things that you love so_

_Are waiting in the place where the lost things go._

 

“Does tha’ mean… my momma and papa, d’you think?” Bert whispered breathlessly, his eyes fluttering between open and shut as he spoke. Mary nodded, squeezing his hand even tighter, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in her chest. “Yes, Bert, I think so.”

 

“So… d’you think I’ll see ‘em again?” His question, barely audible, was harder than any question Mary has had to answer for her wards. She cast her eyes down, before finally giving out one small nod.

 

“I can’t wait,” Bert smiled, with the dreamy excitement of a child, the night before a birthday party. Then he took his hand up gently tilted Mary’s chin until she met his gaze.

 

“Don’t despair,” he urged, wiping away a stray tear from her cheek. “You’ll see me again as well. After all, y’can’t really lose what y’haven’t lost. Right?” He smiled with the kindness and wisdom of a father.

 

“Yes,” Mary replied. He was right, after all. It was a lesson she had always saved for the children. How was it that she never learnt it for herself?

 

“Bert,” she said, not knowing where to start or where to end. “Have you lived a good life?”

 

“Every moment of it,” he promised her. Mary smiled, as if she couldn’t have guessed it for herself.

 

_Time to close your eyes,_

_So sleep can come around_

_For when you dream you’ll find_

_All that’s lost is found_

 

_Maybe on the moon_

_Or maybe somewhere new…_

 

His eyes were beginning to close, and his breathing slowed. If one didn’t pay attention, one would have thought that Bert was merely being sung to sleep. But if he was merely sleeping, then why did Mary’s throat feel so hoarse and sticky, as if she was about to cry? She shook her head, clearing her thoughts. The song. That was what was important.

 

_Maybe all you’re missing lives inside of you…_

 

 _Quite right, dear girl._ His voice rang, clear inside her head. _Thank you, Mary Poppins._ He let out a final sigh, leaving nothing but a content smile on his face.

  
The tears flowed freely now, running down Mary’s cheek and staining the collar of her blue coat, and tumbling down the silver buttons that decked it so primly. She made no sound, but the world heard her cry.

 

“Thank you, Bert,” she murmured, reaching over to press a kiss on his forehead. “Rest well, my dear.”

 

_So when you need his touch and loving gaze_

_Gone but not forgotten is the perfect phrase_

_Smiling from a star that he makes glow_

_Trust he’s always there_

_Watching as she goes_

_Find him in the place where the lost things go._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it!
> 
> Fun fact: In the books, John and Barbara were twins, with Annabel as the youngest daughter. MPR chucked Barbara out the window so here's me slipping her back in.


End file.
